President
Bush, several years after most Americans, has decided the nation can’t be
dependent upon foreign energy sources.

For much of his life, when he wasn’t stoned
or wasted, and especially when he was running what came to be a series of
failed corporations, Bush worshipped the power of oil, while denouncing
global warming as junk science. But now, as an enlightened president who
is prevented by his own incompetence and inability to deal with the
insurgency and unable to drill for oil in Iraq, Bush has decided that
alternative energy is necessary. He has a plan -- ethanol. It’s cheap, he
says. It’s available from American corn crops, he claims. It’s primarily
provided by Archer Daniels Midland, which has consistently been a large
donor to political campaigns, primarily Republican. But, just in case
ethanol isn’t as reliable as Bush believes it could be, there’s still the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Our oil-slicked President believes
killing animals and disrupting the ecological balance in the ANWR to drill
for oil beneath the frozen tundra is also part of the solution to the oil
crisis. By 2025, according to government projections, and assuming a ten
year development during which no oil is pumped, oil produced in ANWR will
represent only about 1 to 2 percent of the Americans’ daily needs; if all
the oil in ANWR were successfully mined, it would represent less than a
one year supply.

But,
while Bush says we shouldn’t depend upon foreign energy, he really means
we should depend upon foreign energy, not in the form of natural resources
but in a human form.

He has
no objection to American corporations increasing their compensation to
executives and stockholders, most of them Republicans, by laying off
American workers, most of them Democrats, and outsourcing jobs to myriad
other nations.

Call
for customer service on everything from a credit card dispute to a
computer and you’ll probably be talking to someone in India. Want an
American-made car? If you don’t mind that most of the parts are probably
made in Mexico and other countries, you can have your all-American gas
guzzler. Clothes? Don’t even try looking for the union label. There isn’t
one in any of two-dozen countries that provide most clothes worn by
Americans. Toys? Games? American flags? Try China.

Most
American politicians treat Cuba, an island nation about the size and
population of Pennsylvania but with a higher literacy rate, as a Third
Rail. They punctuate every mention of Cuba with the venomous tag,
“Communist.” The U.S. doesn’t recognize Cuba, it doesn’t allow Americans
to vacation there, and it doesn’t allow trade with the people of Cuba.
But, every politician -- it makes no difference if they’re left, right, or
mugwump, slobber all over the gluttonous probabilities of trade with the
one billion population Chinese Communists. Even Wal-Mart has moved into
China. We don’t know how that will benefit the average American; we do
know that it means the end of China’s downtown commerce.

In
America, spurred by talk-show mouths, we complain about hordes of illegal
immigrants infiltrating our businesses and gorging themselves on every
medical, welfare, and educational benefit available. We don’t want illegal
immigrants -- translate that into the language of “Latino” -- but we also
willingly employ them, and seldom do much to the employer.

And so
millions of Latinos, trying to earn enough money to send home to their own
families while possibly trying to become American citizens, shed their own
knowledge and skills to become this nation’s unskilled and semi-skilled
laborers, to become janitors and gardeners, maids, clerks, and factory
workers. Of course, employers have a scripted, ready-to wear excuse of why
they must hire illegals -- they claim there’s a worker shortage for
low-paid no-benefit back-breaking jobs. Of course, they’re right. One
full-time worker making minimum wage, with no vacations, will earn $10,712
a year. The Census Bureau has determined that the poverty line for one
person is $10,160 -- but, for a family of mother, father, and two
children, the poverty line is $19,806. Even those employers who pay
illegal immigrants twice the minimum wage, still provide no benefits, and
pay them less than for American citizens.

The
employment of low-wage employees is addictive. Hiring illegal immigrants
means that businesses get workers for low wages, don’t pay social security
and unemployment taxes and, for sure, don’t contribute to pensions or
health care. Illegal immigrants either have to let the illness or injury
“run its course” while destroying other body systems or reluctantly go to
a charity hospital where taxpayers will cover the tab, keeping the
employer from losing any more of the “bottom line.”

When
Americans do complain about worker exploitation in Third World countries,
American corporations claim that if the overseas workers didn’t earn
pennies per hour, the cost of consumer goods the corporations sell to
Americans would be significantly higher. That shuts up most of the
opposition. If Americans weren’t so blinded by their own greed, they would
argue that keeping jobs in America would improve wages for all persons,
allowing the people to afford higher-priced goods. The people could also
argue that corporations could lower executive salaries and benefits, as
well as the profit margins, to minimize price increases.

President Bush wants the government to recognize and permit more
immigrants. He believes it will help improve the nation’s work force. He
is right. Most immigrants, transient illegals or future citizens, are hard
workers. However, flooding American businesses with low-wage/minimum
benefit employees allows businesses to increase their profits, a goal well
within the political philosophy of this Administration, but opposed by the
reality that companies earn their profits not because of country-clubbing
executives but from the sweat of their workers.